Dare Not
by lirodendron
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. One shot. John's thoughts after Sherlock's death. Primarily a character study vignette.


He had never felt such pain. Not just emotional, but physical pain, sharp stabs with each breath, each movement, each beat of his heart. The pain that had wracked his body when shrapnel shredded muscle and bone in Afghanistan, spilling his blood on distant soil and ending his career, had been white hot and burning, each throb a blazing reminder than he was still alive. This was different. Some people describe feeling numbness or blankness after such a tragedy, a mental protection from the rawness of pure loss until time has passed and the mind can cope. He wished in vain for such a blessing. It was a cold, icy pain, needles working their way deeper and deeper into every part of his mind and body. It was like slipping into a freezing ocean, into death, only there was no relief, no lessening of the sensation or unconsciousness to claim him, just ever colder, more terrifying waters.

To move, to speak, to think was agony, but to stay still was even worse. He called his therapist, knowing there was nothing she could do, not wishing to be alone but unable to bear the presence of loved ones. She was a good therapist, sensing much that he had never told her, never even attempted to say, and she was kind. She tried to draw it out of him, like lancing a wound, hoping an admission could allow for release and healing, but he found himself sitting there, nearly paralyzed, unable to form any words other than "My best friend, Sherlock Holmes, is dead". He himself had hoped that finally saying it would change something, let him accept it, but it did nothing. The pain did not lessen and could not grow worse. He was silent for the rest of the session, and after a few more attempts to get him to speak his thoughts, so was she. He was grateful, and left slowly, ponderously, mutely when their time was up.

He had never been a man to speak his emotions unnecessarily, even before the war. He did not consider himself to be unaffectionate or cold, and could be moved to expressions of love or passion if the situation called, but on the whole felt that over-expression of feelings got in the way of life and relationships. It was very well to wax sentimental about something or someone, but wasn't it far better to spend your energy doing things to show your loyalty or love to your friends, your family, your country?

Now all he could do was fixate on all those unexpressed emotions, all those feelings he had refused to give voice to, even inside his own head. Perhaps it would be easier had they been…he stumbled even now over the thought…lovers. Had they allowed the line they pretended wasn't even there to be crossed. They might have loved and laughed and quarreled and perhaps even grown bored of each other and broken up spectacularly. Or settled into a dull, pleasant routine like couples married half a century. Perhaps that hadn't even been possible. Perhaps Sherlock was truly incapable of such a thing, romance, a stable relationship. It might have been a disaster. It might have been glorious. It might have been both. But at least he would have known.

Instead, all the unarticulated thoughts, the unconsummated desires hung there in his mind, forever frozen as they were, forever untarnished and pure and just out of reach. It made what they had had somehow both more precious and more painful. It had belonged only to them. Perhaps only to him, really, as even at the end he was never sure how much Sherlock had felt, had thought, had admitted to himself. It didn't matter what they were, what either man had thought of or felt for the other, as long as they had been together. It didn't need to be said. But now that Sherlock was gone, the regret of never saying, never knowing flooded his heart and threatened to crush him entirely.

As a young man, he had heard his grandmother refer to "the love which dare not speak its name", and had just thought of it as a polite euphemism from a less enlightened era. And perhaps that was all it was to her and many others. But he understood now the truth of the phrase. It had nothing to with sex, with orientation, with shame, or even with lust. It was a feeling so profound, so inexpressible, so completely unasked for and improbable between two people that to give voice to it was to ensure its destruction, or at the very least its transformation into something more tangible but less sacred. It was something too powerful and too intimate to make real except in the hearts which shared it.

When he had stumbled, head reeling and pounding, to his friend's side, fumbling in vain for the bony, blood-slicked wrist, desperate to find a pulse that would refute what he already knew in his heart, he could not say it. All he could say was the name. Sherlock. Sherlock. As if it was a talisman that could call life back into the broken body. He could not say it to his therapist, to Molly, or even to Mrs. Hudson, who had always assumed their romantic relationship, despite his vocal protests. Even when at last he stood before the grave, alone, with no one to hear, he could not say everything that was in his heart. To say it would mean that it was over, truly. To admit that Sherlock was never coming back, because no power on earth could have dragged the admission out of him while they were both still breathing.

He said a lot of things he had wanted tell Sherlock, all of them true but none of them the whole truth. In the end all he could really say was "Please don't be dead." Not so that he could finally tell him how he felt, not so that they could have the romance there hadn't been a chance for, but so they could simply go back to how it was. To the infuriating, undefined but unshakeable, miraculous thing they had had together that had made him whole. He didn't need or want expressions of love, physical fulfillment, pledges of eternity. Such things did not suit either of them. He just wanted a return to the easy companionship, the unspoken certainty they had shared for too brief a time. He didn't want to rewrite the past or to make something new. He just wanted Sherlock.

"Please. For me."


End file.
